From CNN:
Until now, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster has held his fire about his stint in the Trump White House. McMaster served with distinction in key American conflicts of the past decades: the Gulf War, the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, but as McMaster recounts in his new book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” in some ways, his most challenging tour as a soldier was his last one: serving as the national security adviser to a notoriously mercurial president. In his blistering, insightful account of his time in the Trump White House, McMaster describes meetings in the Oval Office as “exercises in competitive sycophancy” during which Trump’s advisers would flatter the president by saying stuff like, “Your instincts are always right” or, “No one has ever been treated so badly by the press.” Meanwhile, Trump would say “outlandish” things like, “Why don’t we just bomb the drugs?” in Mexico or, “Why don’t we take out the whole North Korean Army during one of their parades?”
And:
...McMaster writes that in the aftermath of his 2020 electoral defeat, Trump’s “ego and love of self… drove him to abandon his oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ a president’s highest obligation.” McMaster adds, “The attack on the US Capitol stained our image, and it will take a long-term effort to restore what Donald Trump, his enablers, and those they encouraged took from us that day.
And from CBS:
His first real business meeting with Trump was a presidential daily brief, an intelligence briefing that all presidents get. McMaster said, "I have a distinct impression of that meeting of being really not very effective for the president. President Trump plays to an audience, and it was too big of an audience in the Oval Office."
Martin asked, "And would the audience play to him?"
"The audience would play to him. I describe the environment as an environment of competitive sycophancy," McMaster replied.
"Did he want advice, or did he want flattery?"
"The president wanted advice; he also wanted flattery. He really likes the adulation. In many ways he's kind of addicted to adulation from his political base, from people around him."
A very stable genius, indeed.
